Unsavory etymologies: dung and its kin

Below, I’ll speak about the amazing history of the word dung “manure.” In broad outline, the story is known, but some details are seldom discussed in dictionaries. I should also mention another reason I turned my attention to dung. Probably few people outside the tiny group of professional etymologists realize that dung is related to dingy, as in “a rundown and dingy alley; a shabby, dingy coat,” not necessarily “foul” or “ill-smelling” but certainly unattractive (“shitty,” if I may). Note the vowels of dung and dingy! We will return to the alternation u ~ i at the end of this essay.

Surprisingly, dung is a word that goes back to Old English (surprisingly, because we seldom associate antiquity with manure, excrements and their likes: temples and sarcophagi are another matter). By contrast, dingy surfaced in printed texts only in the seventeenth century, though it may have been current in oral speech much earlier. Dung, unlike dingy, has cognates all over the Germanic-speaking world. Closely related to itis German Dung (the same meaning).

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1965) followed the original OED and wrote about dung “of unknown origin.” Apparently, the editors of that otherwise excellent work missed the rich literature on the word, a mistake the OED online, not unexpectedly, avoided. The entry in the online version discusses the problem in detail, makes suggestions, and finally says “of uncertain origin.” Though the origin of dung may indeed be uncertain, below, I’ll cite a few arguments that may throw light on the problem.

But first, a few facts, culled from easily available sources. As noted, dung has close cognates in other Germanic languages. German Dung is also known from very early texts. Apparently, the word was not offensive anywhere: just a neutral and useful name for what it designated. The same holds for Old Frisian and Middle Dutch dung. Old Icelandic had dyngja “heap; dung.”

Closer to home, we find Engl. ding “to knock, dash down.” Whether this verb is a loan from Scandinavian (Old Icelandic dengja meant “to whet a scythe”) makes little difference, because we are dealing with a Common Germanic group of words. The verb ding,I suppose, emerged as a sound-imitative word (think of ding-dong, a complex representing the sound of a knock on a hard body). However, it joined the vocabulary of English as a strong verb, that is, it had its three principal parts like those in sing ~ sang ~ sung.

This type of vowel alternation is called ablaut, and verbs displaying ablaut are called strong. The other type, as in pick ~ picked ~ picked is known as weak. Yet the line is sometimes crossed. To those who say sneak ~ snuck ~ snuck the verb is strong, and to those who prefer sneak ~ sneaked ~ sneaked it is weak.

Only old, inherited verbs displayed ablaut, and that part of the history of ding comes as a surprise. Wasn’t ding a funny, colloquial newcomer fifteen or so centuries ago? Apparently, not, because ding never behaved like a recent formation. Ding ~ dang ~ dung joined ring ~ rang ~ rung (which, incidentally, acquired this type of conjugation late!).

As a rule, newcomers of this type are weak. Think of the relatively late English verb to wing (as in the bird winged its way across the lake and winged words). It would have been odd to have the sequence wing ~ wang ~ wung! I may add that bing “to pile up,” another onomatopoeia, also existed, and its past tense was of course binged. Thus, whatever the distant origin of ding, the verb was strong (ding ~ dang ~ dung), and therefore, nothing objects to its affinity with the noun dung. The vowel alternation followed the rule of ablaut.

The works postdating the OED volume with dung pay special attention to the Old Icelandic noun dyngja “women’s underground quarters” and Old English dung “prison.” It has been suggested that the meaning underlying those words is “a cover.” Modern Icelandic dyngia refers to all kinds of elevated structures: volcanoes, heaps, nests, and so forth. Therefore, it is perhaps more likely that such was also the original sense of both “women’s quarters” and “prison”: people produced an underground structure that stuck out. Some sort of roof over it might exist, but being covered does not seem to have played a role in naming those places.

In sum, dung, it appears, is related to the strong verb ding “to strike.” A dung was something that was piled up with an effort (hence “strike”). Other than that, one could build a dugout and heap earth on top. The structure could be used for all kinds of purposes: from isolated living quarters to a place of confinement.

It may have come as a surprise that dung is related to a verb meaning “to strike,” but language is full of surprises. Here is another one. The German for “dung” is Mist, also a word of great antiquity. Related forms exist all over the Germanic-speaking world and mean “to drizzle” and “urinate.” Its Old English cognate meox has survived (in a changed form, to be sure) only in some British dialects.

Every English speaker learning German asks whether Mist and mist are related. Yes, the root of both nouns means “to drizzle, urinate.” The underlying idea is wetness. Isn’t it amazing how the same root produced “muck,” and “light fog”! But after all, mist is a collection of thin drops, and “urine” seems to be a tolerably good base for both. The substance denoted by German Mist is not necessarily wet, but let us not be too particular when it comes to the development of meaning. (Incidentally, muck also refers to urination!)

Historical phonetics is governed by certain tolerably accurate regularities. Historical semantics is not quite capricious either, but the explorer of meaning encounters many more dangerous corners. Human ingenuity has no limits. Above, we have traced the path of two roots for the words meaning “manure”: Engl. dung and German Mist. One path was unpredictable, the other quite logical. Let us be pleased with what we have. 

POSTSCRIPT

In connection with the most recent post “Boots (or Rather, Shoes) on the Ground” (September 2, 2026) Mr. Nicholas Dobson called my attention to the German word Handschuh “glove,” literally, “hand-shoe.” The word makes it clear that shoe once meant “cover.” It existed all over Germanic, and one of Beowulf’s warriors was called Hond-scio. The history of glove and mitten is also not quite devoid of interest, but at the moment I have nothing to say about it.

See also a most curious comment by Mr. Israel Cohen following that post!.

_{Feature image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay. Public domain.}